At least eight killed in Israeli drone strikes on highway south of Beirut 

Three Israeli drone strikes on cars on a major highway linking Beirut to southern Lebanon have killed at least eight people, including two children, Lebanon’s Ministry of Health reported.

A photograph of the bombed cars shared by Lebanon’s National News Agency following the attacks on Wednesday in the Jiyeh area, some 20km (12 miles) south of the Lebanese capital, showed the vehicles severely damaged, their exteriors charred and torn apart.

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Tyre in southern Lebanon, said the “conflict is only escalating”.

“It is a conflict that is taking a high toll on the civilians who live in these areas,” she said.

Lebanon and Israel are expected to hold a new round of direct negotiations in Washington on Thursday, brokered by the United States.

Hezbollah, which has been launching attacks on northern Israel and on Israeli troops who have entered and occupied a section of southern Lebanon, says it opposes the negotiations in the US.

On Wednesday morning, the Israeli military issued forced displacement orders for the residents of Meiss el-Jabal, Yanouh, Burj Shemali, Hula, Debl and Aabbasiyyeh, warning that it will soon act against these six southern Lebanese villages “forcefully”.

Anyone who remains “endangers their life,” the military said, warning residents to move at least 1,000 metres (0.6 miles) away to “open areas”.

After this new round of forced displacement orders – which have been happening almost daily in the past week – Al Jazeera’s Khodr said one of the few remaining hospitals in the area was in the displacement zone.

“There are only three left in the whole district of Tyre, and there are still people who live here. At least 100,000 people still live here,” she said.

“These hospitals are really a lifeline for these people, but some of them, those who are injured, don’t make it because the road is a long journey to reach these hospitals and people are still in villages further south.”

On Tuesday, 13 people were killed in attacks on towns in the south, including two Lebanese Civil Defence paramedics, Hussein Jaber and Ahmad Noura, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.

The ministry reported that at least 380 people have been killed during the truce, bringing the total death toll since the Israeli invasion and bombardment began on March 2 to more than 2,800.

It also said on Monday that 108 emergency medical services and healthcare workers had been killed in Lebanon during the war, with more than 140 Israeli attacks recorded on ambulances and medical facilities.

“All of this is having a huge impact here on the communities in southern Lebanon,” Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto said from Tyre. “And there is a growing humanitarian crisis, with over a million people displaced.”